Are you one of those bail agents that swears off participation in state and national bail associations as a waste of time? You question the leadership or legislative agenda of these associations? Perhaps you believe the association is controlled by one surety company or another or perhaps a large general agency.
It may be that your resistance to get involved is simple apathy or bail is still strong in your county and you’re not concerned about what’s happening elsewhere. Well, it’s time to get involved.
Perhaps you’ve heard of billionaire George Soros? Well, he’s taken up the cause of pretrial detainees by providing substantial funding to the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) to promote the elimination of money bail, bail bonds in favor of less restrictive and cost free (to the defendant) options.
The first of three propaganda pieces being distributed by JPI is titled Bail Fail: Why The U.S. Should End the Practice of Using Money For Bail. This report is a biased view on why every criminal defendant deserves to be released without a financial guarantee of appearance. They propose, by asking the right set of questions, the courts can increase the rate of court appearance by criminal defendants.
This proffer is what’s known in Texas as, all hat and no cattle. The package is impressive but the content is severely lacking. Every bail agent should read this document very carefully to understand the effort underway to end the use of commercial bail bonds.
We are approaching the state association fall meetings for California, Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas where this document will surely be discussed. For those of you who have repeatedly opted out of participating or contributing to your state association, now would be a good time to get involved.